Hello. My name is Dan, and today I doomsday prepped

[B C]

Last time I touched the control arms was 7 years ago. Did you need a tool to get the old bushings off/new ones on?

I definitely had to make a tool from threaded rod to get the bushings on the last time

Coincidentally I ordered some from Garigistic today

[KaiserRolls]

What engine mounts do you have dan?

[straight6pwr]

I was just barely able to get the old bushings pulled from the arms with a 3-jaw gear puller. They were already offset bushings so I had to use unequal length arms on the puller and drill a hole in the end of the control arm to keep the threaded rod from traveling off.

Engine mounts are r3vshift

[straight6pwr]

did some work on both cars today.

scored a sweet e28 mtech I spoiler already in alpine from andy - thanks dude.

new holes drilled

the center 4 holes are close enough to the stock locations that access from inside the trunk lid is easy

however, the outside two are much wider, so cutting the openings inside the trunk lid is necessary to get the nuts on there.

and voila!

had the same setup on my last e30 and loved it. photo circa 2012

on my roadtrip up north last weekend, some dickweed trailering a boat left stuff in the boat (life jackets, fishing poles, etc) while traveling on the freeway, and they proceeded to jettison while I was driving behind him. it cost me a high beam lens and some scratches. ordered a replacement DEPO set to get parts off and installed them.

i also deactivated the bumper running lights and hooked up my amber LEDs that I installed into the low beams when doing my retrofit.  here is the result:

last step is to get the fogs working independently

[wasnt m3]

Glad to see that spoiler made it onto your car! Looks really good. Can't complain about the color match.

[B C]

Glad the jettisoned cargo didnt take out the fresh paint on the valence. I really like what you did with the amber lights. I remember the slick LED signal setup you did on your black car from long ago too.

[MattY]

that's a sweet rear look. i'm tempted to run an mtech ii wing on mine if i can source one, cause the price to paint an IS spoiler in alpine would probably be close enough where i wouldn't hate myself for shelling out for the mtech

[straight6pwr]

MattY said:

that's a sweet rear look. i'm tempted to run an mtech ii wing on mine if i can source one, cause the price to paint an IS spoiler in alpine would probably be close enough where i wouldn't hate myself for shelling out for the mtech

just paint it yourself. $40 for a BMW color-matched spray can and a little time on prep work. super easy.

i have a spare 'i' spoiler now that needs some sanding/scraping of old paint that you can just have.

[Jdesign]

Damn. All kinds of awesome in here. Looks great Dan!

[HipMF]

Somehow managed to get a couple months behind on this thread. Nice work. The "palamino"/alpine combo is awesome!

[MattY]

straight6pwr said:

i have a spare 'i' spoiler now that needs some sanding/scraping of old paint that you can just have.

that would be sweet! i'm gonna have to get my valance painted, so might as well redo the skirts and that spoiler as well.

[straight6pwr]

got some stuffs fixed.

had a slight rattle on acceleration from low speed, which turned into a major rattle. i figured the CSB was dead, but never expected this would be why:

not sure what car this wimpy CSB is from, but i replaced it with the correct e30 one. getting the length/alignment right on the bench:

so I've had three small issues with the shifter since I bought the car and decided to tackle them while the driveshaft was out.

first was a bunch of right-left slop with the car in gear. I found the selector joint was super wobbly. seems the PO lost the pin and decided to do a hack job and make his own. (see bottom pin) i made a correctly fitting one (see top pin)

new joint

i also found a second, equally ?wtf? hack. this was how the rear of the carrier was mounted to the car...

i purchased the turner rear poly carrier bracket, as its the same price as the rubber OEM piece. you can see it barely in the picture of the whole shift setup down below.

https://www.turnermotorsport.com/p-392619-turner-shifter-bushing-assembly-e28-e30-e34/

so the second issue with the shifter setup is that the stock e30 carrier places the shifter way off center and forward in the trans tunnel with the s50/e36 zf. i was unable to install a new rubber boot due to this and as well, 5th gear was so far up to the right it would barely contact the shift boot/console edge.

here's the original location:

so the solution is a new carrier. a dude over on r3v found that an e46 version worked well if you cut it shorter, so I ordered one up.

e30 on the bottom, e46 on the top.

you can see it offsets a bit more to the centerline as well as towards the back of the car (once cut to the right length)

measure twice, cut once. er cut twice.

some bolts/c-channel made quick work of putting it back together.

well, i didn't consider that lengthening the carrier that much would cause an issue with the length of the dssr, and it did. with the length shown above, the shifter was tilted super far back when in neutral, so I took another 3/8" of length out to make it work perfectly.

here's the entire setup back together. you can just barely see the turner carrier bracket here. everything is nice and tight now.

not as far back as I wanted, but I can get the rubber boot on now.

my third issue was the 'irremovable' shift knob. see this post for my struggles:

anyways, the PO glued the shift knob to the shift lever, so bye bye beautiful zhp knob.

removal:

Garagistic has an awesome old-school look knob that is weighted (heavier than the zhp). it also only happens to be $25

https://store.garagistic.com/OEM-BMW-parts/e30-e24-e28-weight-shift-knob-25111434495

done and done.

this picture is for brian. rear muffler is unbranded, unfortunately. pipes are 2". 'Resonators' are Thrush glasspack mufflers. i'd actually like to install another pair of them, they did wonders to the tone/rasp and i bet it would mellow it even more.

[B C]

That pin for the selector rod joint wasnt even close. Didnt even attempt to ACE Hardware it.

The fitment of that pin does makes such a difference in the left/right slop.

So on that rear shift carrier mount, was the shift carrier just sitting free? I mean, that would be better than bolting it solid since it needs to slide longitudinally, but wow, so lazy.

Every one of us does some slightly dodgy things on custom projects at some point at least until a permanent solution can be devised, but that one was just lazy.

Thanks for the exhaust pic. Your car sounds extremely good and not a rolling raspberry. My exhaust setup should be pretty interesting since I will be merging the headers at a 3" Y-pipe into my existing Vibrant Ultra quiet resonator (essentially a mini muffler), then I will add a 12 or 18" bottle type resonator to it.

I liked the single exhaust on the turbo M20 so im hoping it doesnt somehow ruin the sound with a 24V with headers.

[straight6pwr]

Snap said:

So on that rear shift carrier mount, was the shift carrier just sitting free? I mean, that would be better than bolting it solid since it needs to slide longitudinally, but wow, so lazy.

Thanks for the exhaust pic. Your car sounds extremely good and not a rolling raspberry. My exhaust setup should be pretty interesting since I will be merging the headers at a 3" Y-pipe into my existing Vibrant Ultra quiet resonator (essentially a mini muffler), then I will add a 12 or 18" bottle type resonator to it.

I liked the single exhaust on the turbo M20 so im hoping it doesnt somehow ruin the sound with a 24V with headers.

cant argue with that, if i were to start from the beginning a single pipe setup is simpler and cheaper.

on the rear carrier mount, the carrier had some bushing stuffed in there as well, but yeah the bracket had to come off to remove the carrier.

[Jdesign]

All that work of mangling to get that knob off of that beat shifter, I would have just bought a new shifter. But the results look great as always. Nice job. (Im still jelly about your interior)

[B C]

Jason will fart on your seats if he ever takes a ride.
I need to come by sometime and make sense of some of the hose and wire routings for my project. My brain is getting numb from looking at RealOEM diagrams for an OBD2 E36, OBD2 E39, and OBD1 E36 (there are a couple oddball E39 specific M52 parts in the mix)

[Jdesign]

Snap said:

Jason will fart on your seats if he ever takes a ride.
I need to come by sometime and make sense of some of the hose and wire routings for my project. My brain is getting numb from looking at RealOEM diagrams for an OBD2 E36, OBD2 E39, and OBD1 E36 (there are a couple oddball E39 specific M52 parts in the mix)

I only puff pink magic clouds similar to unicorn burps, no harm will be caused.

[straight6pwr]

got out for a late night photoshoot in milwaukee. the night ended early (see below) but I got some good ones before that happened.

 

aaaand the night ended with a dead car.  car stalled out and wouldn't start up. fuel pump/main relay gave out. fun thing to happen at midnight. bonus points to anyone who knows the exact spot it happened based on the photo.

[m42b32]

straight6pwr said:

bonus points to anyone who knows the exact spot it happened based on the photo.

I think I know! That parking lot next to the entrance to the Third Ward on St. Paul?

Also, you take amazing pictures, those all look incredible

[Boris3]

Beautiful pics. You have a good eye for setup and use of lighting.